The Piper

by Lynn Hightower

  ‘So how does he explain it, the phone calls she got?’

  ‘He doesn’t. Can’t make sense of it, which is why he told me about it one night at a bar when we were drinking sixteen year old Scotch.’

  ‘Uplifting story,’ Olivia said, raising a glass.

  ‘My thinking is this, Livie – so hear me out. Mary would have been better off just going on with her life and not picking up that elevator phone. She didn’t have to pick it up, right? Now you, you got this call from your brother. He gives you a vague warning you can’t make any sense of, and you’re turning yourself inside out trying to figure out what to do. My advice is don’t mess with this supernatural stuff. I’m not saying it didn’t happen exactly like you say. I’m just saying it makes good sense to leave it be.’

  ‘Hey,’ Olivia said. ‘I’ll leave it alone, if it leaves me alone.’

  ‘There you go. Tell your buddy in LA to stop stirring things up. Feel good about your brother reaching out, if you really think it was him, if it gives you peace of heart. But stop researching this stuff and looking over your shoulder. Live your life in the here and now.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  Olivia did not sleep. The story about Mary in the elevator had kept her awake, ending the romantic dinner on an off note. She had refused to kiss McTavish good night or let him walk her to the door.

  Not sleeping left her restless, and she sat at the sunroom table the next afternoon, heavy eyed and depressed. The plumber had been scheduled to arrive first thing in the morning, she had not yet been in to work, and it was now almost one o’clock. She had been mystified that morning when a van with the Harrison Plumbing logo had pulled into the driveway just a few minutes after eight, but had inexplicably pulled back out and disappeared. She had called in to enquire and been left hanging.

  Her phone had rung at eleven, McTavish on the caller ID, but Olivia had not picked up. Although Olivia had told him that her grudge over Annabelle McClintock was old dead news, the truth was, she had never actually forgiven him. Not for betraying her with Annabelle of all people – one of those girls who always had everything they wanted, wealthy parents who paid for cheerleading trips and uniforms, a new car when she was sixteen, full tuition and sorority fees when she went to college.

  Olivia, on the other hand, grew up in the aftermath of a family whose financial back had been broken when her older sister disappeared. Extra monies went to the great white hope of private detectives who specialized in missing persons. So she had worked summers at a doughnut place to pay for her car, an ancient rusting Pontiac Le Mans. She’d moved up to retail jobs at the mall and taken on debt to get through school.

  And yet, Annabelle had somehow minded. All the things she had were never enough. Annabelle had set herself up in competition with Olivia from that ancient moment in elementary school, when Olivia had gotten the coveted role of Snow White in the first grade play. Annabelle had planned to be Snow White, and told everyone who would listen that Olivia had only gotten the role because the teachers felt sorry for her, because her sister Emily was a missing child. Which Olivia, who was no good at all in plays, she had to admit it, felt was very likely true.

  Olivia thought that this might have been Annabelle’s first experience of no. And evidently, Annabelle had really wanted to be Snow White.

  Because from that day on, Annabelle went head to head with Olivia in every possible way. If Olivia took piano lessons, Annabelle took piano lessons. If Olivia joined a Brownie troop, Annabelle joined the same troop, making sure to cut Olivia out of the herd. High school had been a little better, with Annabelle kept busy with cheerleading, while Olivia spent her spare time working part time after school, but as soon as McTavish started getting handsome and playing football, and his friendship with Olivia got seriously noticed, the rivalry sparked.

  Annabelle had obsessed over McTavish, suddenly jealous of the friendship between his family and Olivia’s, flirting with him, keeping a distance as long as the relationship between Olivia and McTavish did not turn to romance. McTavish did have an unwed mom after all, which her parents didn’t much like, and Annabelle wasn’t quite sure was cool. But in that first year of college, when McTavish and Olivia began to date, the game was on.

  Annabelle worked him hard, and at the first sign of trouble between McTavish and Olivia, she had scooped him up. The only satisfaction Olivia had was knowing that whatever happened, Annabelle was unlikely ever to play Snow White.

  Olivia heard a truck pull into the driveway. She was gratified to see the encouraging presence of a ladder and built in tool boxes, and the Harrison Plumbing logo. Old houses meant late plumbers, and she felt she should count herself lucky someone had actually arrived on the scheduled day.

  She watched out the sunroom window, and a man in a red denim shirt got out of the truck, saw her through the window and waved. She met him at the front door, Winston at her heels.

  ‘Mrs James? I’m Con Harrison – you called about a problem with leaks in your bedroom and bathroom ceiling?’

  ‘Come in,’ Olivia said.

  Harrison grinned at Winston. ‘He friendly?’ A rhetorical question since Winston was already nuzzling his head into the man’s large, square palm. ‘Good boy.’ Harrison looked up. ‘I’m sorry about my guy not showing up this morning. I’m the owner – I usually ride the desk these days unless we get slammed. We actually pride ourselves on showing up when we say, so since all my other guys are tied up, I thought I’d come on out myself, and make sure things get taken care of. When Lenny called in sick, it played hell with the schedule, or I’d have been here sooner.’

  ‘He actually did show up,’ Olivia said. ‘I saw the van in the driveway around eight.’

  Harrison’s face darkened, and he looked embarrassed. He was big shouldered and slim, and he put his hands in his jeans pockets. ‘Yeah, he did come out, but he called in – from your driveway, actually. He said he was feeling off all of a sudden, and needed to take the day sick.’ Harrison shrugged. ‘I really wanted Lenny out here, because he did the work for the last owner. They called us out several times.’

  ‘That was my sister-in-law, Charlotte. She recommended you guys.’ She hadn’t. Olivia had found old plumbing invoices in a kitchen drawer.

  ‘So, can you show me where the leaks are?’

  ‘Up here.’ Olivia headed up the stairs, followed by Harrison and Winston, feet and paws clattering on the wood. ‘The worst is in here,’ she said, leading Harrison into the bathroom. She pointed at the hole in the ceiling.

  ‘Oh, man.’ Harrison craned his neck and studied the hole, frowning, as if something did not make sense.

  ‘And also in here.’ Olivia went to her bedroom – she had made sure all the clothes were put away and the bed was neatly made. Strangers in the house meant the perfection façade. ‘Right here, by the side of the bed. I keep finding little puddles of water. I can’t figure out where they’re coming from. I don’t see any discoloration or leaks in the ceiling.’

  Harrison crouched down by the floor, running a finger on the wood. ‘I’m not seeing any damage. How much water are we talking about?’

  Olivia put a hand to the floor. ‘Right here. About what you’d find if you dumped a cup of water beside the bed.’

  ‘Huh.’ Harrison stood. ‘Okay, let me go get my tools. I’ve got some paperwork in the truck – copies of the orders we did when we came out last year. I’ll go over all the old work and take a look around. You got a ladder handy? If not, I’ll bring one in off the truck.’

  Olivia waited in the living room, checking emails, then setting her laptop aside and folding a basket of towels and sheets. Harrison clattered in and out of the house, went into the basement several times, muttered something about checking the gutters and the window flashing. He refused a cup of coffee with an air of distraction that made Olivia nervous.

  She was wondering how much of her work day could be salvaged when she saw Harrison putting the ladder back on the truck and gathering up his tools.
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br />   He popped his head into the living room. ‘I’ll take that cup of coffee now, if you don’t mind.’

  Olivia filled a mug, and they sat together at the tile table in the sunroom for the dreaded talk. Harrison had armed himself with a clipboard and pen.

  ‘So here’s the thing, Mrs James.’

  ‘Olivia.’

  ‘Pretty name.’ He flipped through a stack of stained and wrinkled paperwork. ‘I went over all the work we did for your sister-in-law – double checked everything was holding up okay. Over the last eighteen months, we replaced the wax gasket on the upstairs toilet, replaced the joints to the sink, and we also had to go in and tear out the old shower pan and put in a new one. All of that looks solid. Then I went over everything else in the house.’ He laughed a little. ‘The good news is I can’t find anything much wrong.’

  ‘Okay,’ Olivia said, knowing she sounded wary.

  ‘Let’s talk about that ceiling coming down. If the plaster had come out due to water damage, then there’s going to be discoloration and mold, and there’s nothing like that up there. And about that floor in the bedroom – there’s no water damage to the wood, like you’d expect with an ongoing problem. There aren’t any pipes up under that floor. No window leaks upstairs, nothing with the flashing and the gutters. You’re welcome to get another opinion from a different plumber, but you want to be careful, some guys might come in here and bullshit you, and run you up a big bill.’

  ‘Then why did that ceiling come down?’

  ‘Could be lots of reasons, I’m just saying it’s not caused by a leak.’

  ‘What about the water on the bedroom floor?’

  ‘Again, no pipes, no leak. Nothing coming in from the ceiling, the windows or the walls. So my only thought is it could be rising damp. That might account for the problem in that bathroom ceiling too, but I’d expect to see some traces of mold.’

  ‘Damp?’ Olivia said. ‘What am I supposed to do about damp?’

  Harrison grinned. ‘Rising damp comes from one of two things. Water that’s getting in – and I’ve pretty much ruled that out. So it comes down to water that can’t get out.’

  ‘But where does the water come from?’

  ‘Condensation. From showers, baths and cooking – just normal living in a house. I noticed you have a vent in the upstairs bathroom, and it’s working just fine. You do turn it on when you take a shower or bath?’

  ‘Sometimes. It’s noisy.’

  ‘Yeah, my wife won’t turn ours on either. But you need to run that thing, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Now the bedroom. That one’s odd, but old houses are quirky. You could put trickle vents on the top of the windows, but that’s going to run into some money. My suggestion would be to get a portable dehumidifier and run that, see if it does the trick. If it solves the problem, then at least you know it’s an issue of damp, and you can just keep using the dehumidifier or see about the vents.’

  ‘So the bottom line is, no big plumbing worries, run the vent in the bathroom, and get a dehumidifier.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  At least, Olivia thought, writing out a check for a hundred fifty dollars, Harrison had come up with a solution she could afford.

  ‘Can I ask you one last question?’ Olivia said, as she handed over the check. ‘Is there any way a bath tub faucet could come on by itself?’

  ‘I checked all the shutoffs, all the packing nuts. That faucet doesn’t leak as far as I can see.’

  ‘No, I don’t mean a leak, I mean come on full blast.’

  Harrison gave her a worried look. ‘No, ma’am. Not unless you had a pipe bust on you. And then it wouldn’t stop.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  Teddy had been cheerful that afternoon when Olivia picked her up after school, full of news about Mr Ogden and bringing home a sheet of directions that Olivia was to use for making the rat costume for the school play. Olivia studied the directions nervously. She didn’t sew, wisely giving it up after trying to hem Teddy’s little corduroy overalls, and sewing the little legs together one time too many. Teddy had eaten a good dinner, finished her homework on time, even the math, and had called her daddy on the phone right after her bath, begging for extra reading time after they’d hung up. The evening had been deliciously normal and calm, the only wobble cropping up when Olivia suggested Teddy sleep in her own bed. But she’d looked at the quiver in Teddy’s chin and said never mind.

  Olivia took a break from the unpacking. She considered a long hot bubble bath, but decided not to tempt plumbing and fates, and curled up in the living room and watched a dreary and paranoid German movie before she went to bed.

  When Olivia headed upstairs, Teddy was asleep with all the lights on – the overhead light, along with the lamp by the bed, and the lamp and the light in the hall. Winston was curled up on the end of the bed, wide awake and keeping watch, when Olivia crept into the room.

  She had not chosen the master suite for her bedroom, and she told herself that it was because the smaller room, Emily’s room, had more charm. And that it did – T-shaped, with one dormer window, the ceiling rising into an arch, with a little alcove nook for the bed. The light was good. There were two big windows.

  Chris had died in the master bedroom, and Olivia did not like to go in there. She told Teddy they would reserve the master bedroom for guests. Olivia knew that Teddy thought guests meant her daddy, and nothing Olivia said could change Teddy’s mind. She also knew that the reunion fantasy was normal after a divorce. It would all take time.

  Teddy was cuddly in pink and yellow pajamas, and she slept soundly, hair damp with sweat and sticking to her forehead. Olivia’s cell phone lay on the bedside table in the event that her daddy might call, and The Ghost of Blackwood Hall was splayed on the side of the bed.

  Olivia took the book and set it on the night table. Ghost stories were not the best idea right now. She pulled a blanket up over Teddy’s shoulders, then sat on the edge of the bed, head in her hands, promising herself that she would not be short tempered with Teddy, even when she lied. She would be steady and strong, firm and kind, the perfect mother. She did not really believe in the perfect mothering myth, but that did not stop her from trying, and maybe if she beat her head against the wall in private, she could seem serene and calm when Teddy made her want to scream.

  Because the lies unnerved her. Her own little Teddy, standing with her arms folded, defiant in a way reminiscent of her cousin Janet, and lying right to her face. Maybe it was better that Teddy would not be spending the afternoons with her cousins. Maybe Janet was the source of some of this. Teddy was just the age to idolize a teenage cousin – Olivia remembered how captivated she had been by her sister Emily. Her grown up bras. The frosty pink lipstick that Emily used to dab on Olivia’s lips to make her feel grown up too.

  Olivia rubbed her eyes. She settled into what she tried not to think of as Hugh’s side of the bed, and Winston crept forward, and stretched out by her side. The door was wide open. She thought about turning the lights off. Changed her mind. Maybe Teddy’s fears were getting to her, but Olivia felt better with the lights on now, and Teddy curled up by her side. She did not want to think about why and she did not expect to sleep.

  But sleep was not the problem. The insomnia that had dogged Olivia most of her life seemed to have mysteriously kicked into reverse. The problem now was waking up.

  And she needed to do that, to wake up. The dog was barking, and Teddy was restless, crying softly, crying out for Mom. In her dream, Olivia was a little girl again, sitting on the front porch steps, waiting for Emily and Hunter to come home.

  Olivia opened her eyes, reaching out instinctively, in a sort of panic, but Teddy was there, in the bed, muttering in her sleep.

  ‘No, Mommy, don’t touch me, it hurts.’

  ‘Teddy?’ Olivia was wide awake now, the lamp by her bedside was on the softest setting, but she could see that Teddy was sweating and shivering, her face flushed, fingers pawing the bedspread.
Olivia touched her daughter’s cheek, and she didn’t need to go hunting down a thermometer to know the fever was high. Winston had abandoned the bed, and was stretched out on the floor.

  When Olivia swung her legs over the side of the bed her bare feet met water. Again. She looked up at the ceiling. Still no leak. Should she call the plumber again and let him see the water? No, she’d just get the dehumidifier. It couldn’t hurt.

  The emergency kit of Advil, Band-aids, Ocilla and Robitussin was downstairs in the kitchen. Olivia followed the trail of lights she’d left on in the house, trying not to analyze her relief at finding them just as she had left them. The emergency six pack of Schweppes ginger ale was one of the few things in the pantry, that and a box of saltines. It had only taken one quick and dirty stomach virus during a move years ago to teach Olivia the value of preparing for Teddy to come down sick at awkward moments, as any child might.

  Olivia piled everything she might need into a colander, the kind of odd thing that always came up in the first kitchen box one unpacked, then headed up the stairs. They were steep, polished wood, and she held tight to the rail.

  There was that bloody dog barking outside again, and now it sounded like it was in her yard. Olivia moved the wood slat aside in the upstairs hall window to take a quick look. And there he was. Pacing beside the backyard fountain. It was too dark to make out much detail, but he seemed to be limping, favoring the back left leg. Olivia wondered if he needed rescuing. If he was a stray. Even from the upstairs window he looked very big. A German shepherd, like Hunter. Olivia had a soft spot for shepherds. Maybe she would adopt him if he didn’t have a home.

  ‘Mommy.’

  ‘I’m coming, hon.’

  Teddy vomited it all up, the children’s Advil, the child dosage of Ocilla, the tiny bit of ginger ale and cracker Olivia had given her to get the medicine down. After that came the pork chop and rice from her dinner, something unidentifiable that might have been her school lunch, then dry heaves and yellow bile. And the fever did not come down at all, if anything it was worse. Teddy was dehydrated now, shaking with chills, face so white her freckles stood out like noisy brown dots.